The Jordan Rift Valley was formed many millions of years ago in the Miocene epoch (23.8 - 5.3 Myr ago) when the Arabian Plate moved northward and then eastward away from Africa. One million years later, the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan Rift Valley rose so that the sea water stopped flooding the area.

The geological and environmental evolution of the valley since its inception in the Oligocene can be seen in a variety of sedimentary and magmatic rock units, preserved as continuous sequences in the deeper basins. The outcropping formations around the basins represent alternating deposition and erosion phases.[1]

The lowest point in the Jordan Rift Valley is in the Dead Sea, the lowest spot of which is 790 metres below sea level. The shore of the Dead sea is the lowest land on earth, at 400 meters (about 1300 feet) below sea level. Rising sharply to almost 1,000 meters (almost 3,300 feet) in the west, and similarly in the east, the rift is a significant topographic feature over which a few narrow paved roads and difficult mountain tracks lead.[2] The valley north of the Dead Sea has long been a site of agriculture because of water available from the Jordan River and numerous springs located on the valley's flanks.

The interpretation of the tectonic regime that led to the development of the Dead Sea Transform is highly contested. Some consider it as a transform fault that accommodates a 105 km northwards displacement of the Arabian Plate,[4] and trace its structural evolution to the early Miocene. Others presume that the Rift is an incipient oceanic spreading center, the northern extension of the Red Sea Rift,[5] and the displacement along it is oblique, with approximately 10–15 km of extension in addition to the more substantial left lateral (sinistral) strike-slip. The evolution of the rift, according to this latter model, started in the late Miocene with the linear series of basins that propagated gradually along their axes to form the present rift valley.[6] The elucidation of the nature of the Dead Sea Transform/Rift is a matter of ongoing study and discussion.